


Echoes

by dakeyras



Series: Naruto Fantasy Week 2020 Oneshots [3]
Category: Naruto
Genre: Alternate Universe - Fantasy, Cursed Power, Gen, Light Angst, Magic, Naruto Fantasy Week, Sage Mode (Naruto), Tragedy
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-07-03
Updated: 2020-07-03
Packaged: 2021-03-05 03:54:08
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,105
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25047973
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/dakeyras/pseuds/dakeyras
Summary: Naruto needs power to free his homeland. He'll do anything, anything at all... and that's the problem. Some things are better left as legend.
Series: Naruto Fantasy Week 2020 Oneshots [3]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1809535
Comments: 1
Kudos: 10
Collections: Naruto Fantasy Week 2020





	Echoes

**Author's Note:**

> For Naruto Fantasy Week 2020: Prompt is 'Cursed Magic'
> 
> Each submission I'm making has a different setting, style and genre.

“It’s a great power,” the Sage warned. He was a terrifying sight. Under his thick mane of white hair, he was wearing only a tattered red vest that went down to his knees. From head to toe he was covered in tattoos. Naruto recognised some of them as runes and sigils and ancient names, not invoked lightly.

Naruto prostrated himself before the shrine. He dared not look at the throne and the man sat upon it, not without invitation. He’d searchede through a thousand riddles and myths for scraps of truth, then walked the length and breadth of the country, to find this place. “I wish to learn it anyway.”

It would be worth it, in the end. To have the power of the sages themselves was to be one step below a god. Naruto would return to Konohagakure and free it from the tyranny of the Great Snake.

The Sage hauled himself to his feet. “Look at me,” he commanded. His face was free of ink, but the red paint markings were, if anything, worse. “Will you pay the price?”

“I will pay  _ any _ price,” Naruto promised, and meant it.

“Then it is done. Come and wash in the basin of holy oil.”

Two snarling toads were pouring a jar into the fount when Naruto approached. It was a crude stone basin somewhat like a large bathtub, full of unearthly light suspended in shimmering oil. He splashed some on his hands and face.

“Don’t be shy, boy,” the Sage said. With one hand he flung Naruto face-first into the fount.

Naruto came up coughing and spluttering, but he felt the power bite into him. Two decades of magical training let him channel the raw fury of nature, let him hold it and tame it. The layers of wards and shields he’d cast on his body in preparation for this day kept him from bursting into flame. It had been such a long road that took him to this point, and he wasn’t going to fall at the last hurdle. He clambered out of the oil and collapsed on the ground beside the basin.

“Stand up,” the Sage ordered. Naruto struggled to his knees, then hauled himself to his feet, his fingers closing around a small rock. His muscles didn’t work the way he was used to, but with every move he made he felt his strength grow. His hand clenched into a fist; the rock was reduced to sand.

“I feel… different,” he said. The world was slowing, falling away. Birds crawled across the sky. A scattering of fallen leaves hung in the air. “What’s happening to me?”

“You’re stronger now, and faster. You  _ think _ faster. I don’t care to talk you through all the details, so I won’t. I will, however, mention this: it will take a while to become used to speaking again,” the Sage explained. “I can still understand you, but to everyone else your words are too fast to hear.”

“I feel silly calling you ‘the Sage’,” Naruto said. “What’s your name?”

“Jiraiya.”

Naruto looked around the empty mountaintop. Light and life, the sun and the seasons, flowed through his veins and so he found the courage to ask a personal question. “Why do you stay here? You could go anywhere, do anything.”

“You will understand eventually,” Jiraiya the Sage said. “Now leave. This is  _ my  _ mountaintop, and I don’t share.”

Naruto left.

The way back to Konohagakure – the City of Green Leaves – was long. Naruto ran all day, never tiring or becoming short of breath. Hills that he had sweated and scowled to climb on his search were mere molehills now. He never ate and never slept. There was a warning in that, but Naruto did not notice. His mind was set on the city, and nothing else.

The gates were guarded but even before his ascension, the City Watch were no threat to him. He forced his way through. The first breath of city air was full of smoke and refuse, but the scents were so faint to him that they may as well have not existed.

In the town square, he laid out his demands. Orochimaru was to take his followers and leave Konoha, never to return. The townsfolk watched in fear. The Great Snake’s enforcers laughed and drew their swords.

Naruto let one of them live to bring a message to his master. Always quick to anger, Orochimaru the Usurper left his castle with his bright blade in one hand and a great and terrible sorcery in the other.

For three days and three nights Naruto struggled mightily. At last, the Snake’s apostles were scattered, his lieutenants were slain, and Orochimaru himself was cast down.

Naruto levelled the dark fortress. It had dominated the skyline of the city of his birth for too many years. Surrounded by the rubble he’d made, dust covering him, he felt nothing but the faintest stirring of weariness. Blades and spells alike had slid off his skin like rainwater – what foe could scare him now?

What friend could touch him, and have him feel the hand upon his own?

The world was slow, and dull, and grey. Naruto had no patience for slow-as-treacle conversations, waiting long minutes for a reply to be spoken. Food and drink were in the past; he had no such needs any more. In one meeting about new defences for the City of Leaves he started ranting. “I have eyes but cannot see the beauty in a raindrop. I have arms but cannot feel the warmth of a kitten clasped to my chest. What is there for me but war, and more war, until the end of all things?”

The city proclaimed him king, and he smiled and bowed, and then two weeks later he left in the dead of night.

He walked away into the wilderness, hidden from man and beast. He was searching for a single moment of joy, but despite looking high and low, it escaped him. His nails could not pierce his skin, and neither could anything else. At last, in desperation, Naruto chose a place in the wilderness – a great plain, surrounded by a thick marsh. He piled up stones that he gathered from far and wide, building a mountain of his own. Foot by foot, year by year, his work consumed him.

Upon the high and lonely peak, he crafted a wellspring of power, and trapped it in a rock basin filled with oil. Peering into the fount, he saw – at last – a rainbow of colour.

In that desolate place, he sat, and watched, and waited for the world to end.


End file.
